Meet the selfish tycoon who dodged billions in taxes

Chances are you’ve never heard of Chuck Feeney. And he’s worked very hard to keep it that way.

Feeney, who will turn 85 on Saturday, had an incredibly successful business career, amassing a multibillion dollar empire based primarily on duty-free retail shopping.

I know what you’re thinking: he already sounds like a bad person… earning a vast fortune by enabling shoppers around the world to avoid paying sales tax and VAT.

This alone constitutes an almost incalculable loss of government tax revenue that could have clearly been much better allocated to more wars and bombs!

But it gets worse: Feeney himself became the poster child of offshore tax avoidance.

According to Forbes, this nefarious tycoon “has aggressively tried to avoid taxes at every stage in his career– from setting up his early business in Liechtenstein, incorporating his holding company in Bermuda. . .”

What a surprise… another rich a-hole abusing offshore tax havens in order to keep all of his wealth for himself.

So on top of helping shoppers around the world avoid paying sales tax and VAT, this guy easily bilked the US federal government out of billions of tax revenue.

It breaks my heart to think about all the government programs that weren’t funded as a result of his selfishness.

Just this morning, for example, I was reading about a bold initiative at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

There was critical research conducted last year where the NIH studied twelve monkeys running on treadmills inside special exercise balls at the Southwest National Primate Research Center.

Needless to say the results of this study are truly game changing for society. I mean… monkeys on treadmills, guys!

We now know, for example, that one monkey vomited, and three others “defecated in their exercise ball”.

What tremendous courage and vision these bureaucrats must have had in putting such a study together.

Unfortunately the program was only granted a paltry $1 million budget, or roughly $83,000 per monkey.

Just think of how many more monkeys could have been observed vomiting and defecating in their exercise balls had Chuck Feeney not been dodging his taxes! It’s a real travesty.

You’re probably wondering how many Ferraris this depraved billionaire has added to his collection over the years…

Well, none, actually.

He’s flown millions of miles in coach, wears a cheap Casio watch, and crashes at his daughter’s apartment when he visits New York City.

It turns out that Chuck Feeney has spent the last few decades giving away his entire fortune to the point that he makes Bill Gates look like an amateur.

Feeney transferred his business interests to his charitable organization in 1984. And for the last 30+ years he’s given away nearly $8 BILLION through the foundation.

While the US government has been using your tax dollars to bomb children’s hospitals by remote control, Feeney has been building them.

He has endowed entire universities, funded cancer research, invested hundreds of millions in AIDS benefit to Africa, built a $300 million medical center in California, and developed a new technology hub on New York City’s Roosevelt Island.

He’s made life-changing donations across the world—Australia, Vietnam, the United States, South Africa, Ireland, etc. that have improved the lives of countless individuals.

These aren’t the actions of a narcissistic robber baron.

And yet much of this was made possible by Feeney’s aggressive tax avoidance. He saved billions of dollars that would have otherwise funded the government’s destructive waste.

The entire concept of taxation is grounded in the idea that some politician knows how to spend money better than you do.

But Feeney opted for a different path: taking completely LEGAL steps to stay in control of his savings and make a huge difference in people’s lives.

As we discussed yesterday, the government and media are force-feeding us a narrative that anyone who tries to take control back is some terrible villain.

It’s as if we’re living in the Dark Ages as feudal serfs obliged to serve the nobility.

What a sad mentality.

The truth is that YOU control your life, your income, your assets… not some politician that’s going to squander it on wars.

You decide how to raise and educate your children, or what you should / should not put in your own body… not some bureaucrat who watches monkeys defecate.

That’s what being a Sovereign Man is all about: control.

And the sooner people start taking it back from their governments-gone-wild, the better, more peaceful, and more prosperous the world will be.

About the Author

Simon Black is an international investor, entrepreneur, and founder of Sovereign Man. His free daily e-letter Notes from the Field is about using the experiences from his life and travels to help you achieve more freedom, make more money, keep more of it, and protect it all from bankrupt governments.